


Closed Doors and Fake Smiles

by pancakedispatcher



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Canon What Canon, Clones, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Feels, Grief/Mourning, How Do I Tag, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, I'm Sorry, Kid Fic, Loki Does What He Wants, Loki is a dick, No Smut, Not Iron Man 3 Compliant, Not Thor: The Dark World Compliant, So much angst, Some Fluff, Some Humor, Some Plot, Steve Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, The Avengers - Freeform, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Why Did I Write This?, all the feels, but no major character dies, i guess, i lie it isn't all good but all the chracters are uninjured i swear, it's all good, like a little bit, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6647161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pancakedispatcher/pseuds/pancakedispatcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> “H-Howard?” The kid asked, confusion dripping from every syllable. His expression, which had been on the verge of a sneer, slowly took on a colder, more desolate appearance. His eyes were filled with sadness and hurt, and he flicked them downwards, staring at his shoes.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <em>“Oh, hell” Tony gritted out, because wasn’t that just a punch in the gut? He was perfectly aware of his resemblance to Daddy Dearest, thank you very much, and didn’t need some scrawny kid to remind him.</em></p><p> </p><p>  <em>A scrawny kid who looked remarkably like Tony. <em></em></em></p><p> </p><p>  <em></em><br/><br/> </p><p>  <em></em><br/><em>In which Loki creates a magical clone of seventeen year old Tony Stark and shoves him into the present (because why not?), and nobody knows how to deal.</em><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oh, Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo this is now officially my second fic *party poppers* and my first attempt at writing a general Avengers one. It’s loosely inspired by the Stargate SG1 episode “Fragile Balance” and a binge of Marvel Kid-fics. As for time line and relation to canon, this fic is obviously set after the events of The Avengers, and doesn’t take into account any of Iron Man 3 or Thor: The Dark World. I hope you like it! (Slight warning, this is completely un-beta’d so there might be some typos and stuff)

Tony stared at the kid, and the kid stared back. 

Both wore the same confused face; mouth quirked downwards, eyebrows drawn in tight, intuitive eyes squinting, and nostrils slightly flaring. It was not an expression that either of the two wore very often.

“H-Howard?” The kid asked, confusion dripping from every syllable. His expression, which had been on the verge of a sneer, slowly took on a colder, more desolate appearance. His eyes were filled with sadness and hurt, and he flicked them downwards, staring at his shoes.

“Oh, _hell_ ” Tony gritted out, because wasn’t _that_ just a punch in the gut? He was perfectly aware of his resemblance to Daddy Dearest, thank you very much, and didn’t need some scrawny kid to remind him.

A scrawny kid who looked remarkably like Tony. 

When JARVIS had alerted Tony to a security breach in the living room, he hadn’t been expecting a pint-sized carbon copy of him, all gangly limbs and a mop of dark curls. The resemblance was jarring. 

“Sorry, kiddo, you’ve got the wrong Stark.” Tony flashed a tight smile, crossing his arms as his mind tried to process how a teenager who looked _exactly like 17-year old Tony_ managed to appear in the common room.

“Well, yeah, no shit” The kid sneered, jamming his hands into jean pockets as he scuffed his battered shoes against the sleek marble flooring. 

“Mind telling me who you are and how the hell you got into my tower?” Tony slowly fished into his pocket for his phone, readying himself to call the rest of the Avengers. What, exactly, they’d do about the teenager, he wasn’t sure, but he sure as hell wasn’t dealing with Short Round by himself.

“I don’t fucking know where I even am, let alone how I got here, sweet cheeks” The boy scoffed, quirking an eyebrow upwards, arrogance rolling off of him. 

“Still waiting on a name, here, champ.” 

“Tony Stark. My name is Tony Stark.”

Oh, _hell_.


	2. Fan-freaking-tastic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand I’m back with chapter two! Enjoy :) This one will be quite a bit longer than the previous one, thankfully! This chapter introduced the Tony angst we'll be seeing a lot more of.

“You-I’m sorry, what? Could you repeat that, please? Because I could have sworn you just said that MTV over there is a clone of 17 year old you?” The Avengers were situated in the kitchen, and Clint was perched on the counter, a spoon of cereal half way to his mouth, which was now hanging open as he stared at the older Tony. 

“As always, Katniss, you put things so eloquently. Yeah, mini me is clone of...well, me from 1978” Tony - the older one - grimaced, clutching his cup of coffee as he inhaled its contents. There was no _way_ he was dealing with this crap-fest without caffeine. Teenage Tony was stood next to him, looking as though he wanted to kill everything or get completely drunk. Maybe both. 

“Jesus, you’re old” Clint smirked, kicking his feet as his legs hung off the counter-top. 

“Barton, you were born literally one year after him” Natasha regarded the archer, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. Clint stuck his tongue out at her, and continued stuffing his face with Cheerios. 

Bruce, who was sat in one of the breakfast stools, slid his glasses from his face and nervously cleaned them on a corner of his shirt. “It, uh, appears that Tony - that is, the new one - is some sort of copy of Tony from his teenage years. He has no memory of any of us, or anything about Tony’s life after ‘78. It’s unlikely that he’s the real one and was simply taken from the past...the repercussions of altering the time line in such a way would be horrific. And Tony - uh, the original - has no memory of this happening to him back as a teenager. The DNA tests we ran were almost an exact match to Tony’s, but a slight abnormality confirms the clone theory” He perched the glasses back onto his nose, and awkwardly scratched the back of his head. 

“I’m assuming it’s magic, then? And not some science experiment gone wrong?” Steve said to Bruce, and then flicked his eyes over to Thor’s, asking a silent question. 

Thor glanced down at his hands, before nodding his head and looking up. “Aye, it would appear my brother had a hand in these events.” The demi-god grimaced, embarrassment and sorrow flooding his features. 

“Fan-freaking-tastic” The two Tony’s groaned in unison, and then groaned again as they realised what they’d done. Clint choked on his cereal, spluttering with laughter and spitting milk everywhere. 

“Real graceful, Barton” The two Tony’s quipped, rolling their eyes as one, before once again realising what had happened. Older Tony let his head fall onto the counter-top and muttered obscenities under his breath.

The other Avengers glanced at each other, all wearing matching expressions of amusement. Whilst, yes, it was a serious - and totally bizarre - situation, it was becoming increasingly hilarious. The teenager and adult were jarringly similar; not just in their outward appearance, although one could clearly see the striking resemblance, but in other things, too. The dry wit and sarcasm was evident, and the two were quick as a whip when it came to mocking Clint, usually with the same deadpan remark or exaggerated eye roll. They held themselves in the same manner, too; both figures were hunched over, shoulders awkwardly caving in, and they clutched their respective mugs of coffee as if it were their very life source. 

“As thrilled as I am by this - no, really, this is great, just fucking brilliant - are any of you trying to, oh, I don’t know, _fix this_?” Older Tony gritted out, his face still smushed against the cold marble surface. Whilst the other Avengers may have found the situation funny, he was slowly loosing the will to live. If there’s one thing he didn’t need, it was to be standing next to a copy of himself before he’d developed a brain-to-mouth filter (not that Tony used the one he had now often, but at least he could should he want to). 

“ _Fix_ this? You know, I take offence to that. Believe it or not, gramps, I’m not exactly relishing the idea of being _poofed_ -” the teenage boy clicked his fingers, emphasising his point, “out of existence. Or being sent back to 1978.” Tiny Tony, as the Avengers had taken to calling him, glared down at his now empty mug with a sullen expression, eyebrows sunken a little too low for him to be merely annoyed. 

Tony shifted awkwardly in his seat, glancing at his younger self out the corner of his eye. Upon first meeting the teenager, he’d quickly recognised the tell-tale signs of grief that he’d experienced way back in the day - the lines of his shoulders far too tense, eyes flickering everywhere except the gaze of others in the room, sarcasm and arrogance laid on just a little too thickly in a bid to divert attention from the sorrow and anguish the boy was so obviously going to be feeling. Seeing these things in Tiny Tony was like a slap to the face, and the cold, desolate feeling of grief began to uncurl itself in his chest. 

This boy, this clone, had been taken from the time directly after Tony’s parents had died. And now he’d been placed in a completely new era, having to navigate his way through the ocean of feelings he’d been subjected too as well as coping with the sense of displacement and alienation. In the back of his mind, Tony couldn’t help but compare this teenagers situation to that of Steve’s, when he’d been yanked from his stint as Capsicle. 

So of course, it was Steve who spoke up, first. “Look, kid, I...we don’t know how to reverse this,yet, but surely you’d be happier back in your own time, where everything is familiar? If you were to stay here, you’d be completely without your family and peers-” He’d started to try and convince the kid, only to be cut off by the boys reply. 

“Oh, fuck off, will you? I’m not going back, I’m not, and you can’t make me. Don’t act like you know what’s best for me, because you don’t. Just - just fuck off back to what ever iceberg you came from and leave me the hell alone” Tiny Tony spat, pushing off from the counter he’d been leaning on and marching out of the kitchen, head hung low and hands stuffed into his pockets. Tony winced, silently cursing Steve for opening his mouth. Objectively, he knew that his friend had only been trying to help - after all, he knew better than anyone what it’s like to fall asleep in one decade and wake up several later. Unfortunately, it appeared that nobody had connected the year Tiny Tony had been cloned from, and the year of his parents demise. _Great, that’s going to be fun to explain_ , Tony thought, bitterly. 

Steve, bless him, looked horribly confused, guilty and a little bit hurt. Tony was slightly regretting filling his teenage clone in on all the events surrounding his and the teams pasts. After all, Tiny Tony was from a time when all Howard had cared about was finding Captain America, neglecting and punishing his own son as he devoted the remainder of his life to hunting down his ‘greatest creation’. Having Steve try to talk him around to returning back to his hell-hole of a life was the last thing he needed, but commenting on Steve’s icy past like that was a low blow. The rest of the Avengers also glanced around, unsure as to why the kid had acted so aggressively towards the suggestion of sending him back to his own time line, or reversing this whole cloning business. 

“What’s the little brat’s problem? No offence, Tony, but you were a huge asshole. Like, even more than you are, now” Clint remarked, eyebrows raised and a slight smirk painted on his face. It was irrational, he knew it was, but Tony really freaking hated Barton at that moment. Not for the jab at his own personality, but simply casting Tiny Tony’s behaviour off as teenage arrogance. As much as it pained him to admit, Tony really felt for the kid - he felt the need to protect the boy, and defend him, because it wasn’t his fault at all and life had really fucking sucked for him at that age. 

“Oh, lay off, Legolas.” Tony shot back, shoving his stool away from the counter and standing up, going over to the coffee pot. 

Clint hopped down, evidently not wanting to let this go. “No, seriously Tony, what the hell? This kids bullshit _‘poor-little-rich-boy’_ routine is going to get really old, really fast.” Tony flinched, slamming his mug down and turning to glare at the archer. He knew, logically, that the other Avengers weren’t to know what had been going through his teenage mind, but at that moment, he didn’t care about logic. He shoved past Steve and Bruce, shaking off the hand that was placed on his shoulder, and stormed out of the kitchen after the teenager, leaving the Avengers behind him in a state of confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus that was a long chapter, er, sorry? I’m not really sure how I feel about this part, it’s quite heavy and doesn’t flow so well, but I felt I needed to start introducing the main themes of this fic! As you can probably guess, it’s going to deal a lot with young Tony and his feelings towards his late family, as well as the (platonic, sorry folks) relationship between Steve and Tony (both older Tony and his teenage counterpart). Don’t worry, it won’t be all angst and suffering, I’m going to try and throw in some fluff and humour! I hope you enjoyed this part, and as always, comments and/or critique is always greatly appreciated :) Next up: Steve feels, Tony feels and Tiny Tony feels. All the feels. ALL OF THEM. 
> 
> ALSO as a side note, although I posted this chapter the next day after the first, this will NOT be the regular updating time. Unfortunately, I have A Levels, so I won't be able to dedicate all my time to writing - however I will try to post as often as I can!


	3. Resident Marty McFly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again for round three! So, I should have been doing revision for A-Levels, but eeeeh, I’ve never been good at prioritising. Hope it was worth it! Warning: this is a ridiculously long chapter, and I didn’t even make it onto the Steve feels (shameful, I know). Again, completely un-beta’d and written by a sleep deprived student, so there will probably be typos. Hope you all enjoy it, and thanks to everyone whose left kudos or a comment :D

Tony - and no, he was not going to call himself Tiny Tony - was crushed. There was no other word to describe it, really. It was stupid, really, to feel this way, but he couldn’t stop the overwhelming sense of loss that occupied his brain and chest. He grieved for his mother, who had loved him ferociously and filled his childhood with memories of lessons in Italian and Sunday Church and picnics in the park. He grieved for Jarvis - the butler, not the strange AI - who had loved him like a son and filled his childhood with memories of soccer (‘ _It’s called_ football, _Tony, and not that crap you yanks play, either’_ ) and Birthday presents and a helping hand with his homework. He grieved the feeling of security and love, the feeling of being wanted, appreciated. He grieved for the only sense of family he had ever known. 

What he did not grieve for, however, was Howard. On some level, he grieved for what should have been - he grieved for the father he never had, but he had been dealing with that all his life. Howard had not earned himself the title of Tony’s father; he was cruel, an abusive drunk who didn’t care if he shoved Tony around too hard, leaving bruises and clipped scratches across the boys tiny frame. He did not care that his words hurt the child more than his fists every could, letting Tony know just what a mistake and disappointment he was. He did not care that Tony had always lived in the shadow of Steve Rogers, Captain America, the perfect son that Howard Stark had so desperately craved, and had spent his life searching for. 

Ah, Captain America. The man standing in the kitchen of Stark Tower. And wasn’t that just a slap around the face? Tony wasn’t sure how his older counterpart could stand it, could stand being in the same space as Steve Rogers, the man who had unknowingly ruined Tony’s childhood and caused a life time of pain and self hatred. Of course, it wasn’t the man’s fault, Tony supposed, but whenever he looked at the blonde super solider, all he could see was everything he wasn’t, and everything Howard had wanted him to be. 

And so for that man, Captain America, Steve Rogers, to tell Tony that he belonged back in ‘78 - the year in which he had buried his Mother, Jarvis, and Howard - well, he just wasn’t having that. Oh, how _good_ it had felt to shout back at the man, to lash out and strike right where he knew it would hurt.

This shouldn’t even be happening; the whole situation was fucking ridiculous. It had taken a while for him to be convinced he was in the future, because _what the hell_. Of course, it didn’t take long for him to be able to look outside the window, look at the technology and the clothes, and see that, yeah, he really _was_ in 2016. But, then the whole _clone_ business? Yeah, that took a little more convincing. It all sounded far too much like a crap, low budget science fiction film. Although, apparently aliens existed now, so what the heck. 

He didn’t feel like a clone. He had all the memories of growing up, right up until this point, and they felt like _his_. And he felt human, not like some magically constructed carbon copy. Which is why, he supposed, there was such a moral dilemma surrounding his future; if he was sent back to 1978, there would then be two versions of him, and Tony could hardly very well walk up to Stark Mansion and proclaim himself a time-hopping magical clone looking for a place to crash. But then, if they somehow managed to get hold of this Loki dude, and reversed whatever magic they’d done, were they.... _killing_ him? Because, it sure felt like they were talking about killing him. Sure, not physically stabbing him or anything, but causing his entire existence to vanish. But then, of course, he could hardly stay here, could he? What was Tony Stark going to do with a seventeen year old clone of himself? He could hardly very well stay with him, because somebody would have to notice. At seventeen, Tony was already the spitting image of his older self, just minus the facial hair and a couple of inches shorter. 

So where did that leave Tony? 

He wasn’t really sure. 

After he’d escaped from the kitchen, he made his way through the back corridors, JARVIS - and _man_ , the AI was creepy; cool as heck, but _creepy_ \- directing him to Tony’s (the older one) lab. He’d only seen the lab once, during the brief whistle-stop tour of Stark Tower he’d been given, but it was the one place in this new era he felt at home in. Which was strange, because the lab was perhaps the most technologically advanced and foreign place he’d ever see; the air was filled with strange, bright blue holographic interfaces, and various computer screens and tablets littered the various workbenches. As for the equipment, which covered every spare inch of the lab, Tony could hardly recognise any of it, apart from the odd wrench or screwdriver. After all, Tony was straight from the 70s, back when the internet wasn’t commercially available, never mind all this. But it wasn’t the physical space, per se, that Tony felt at home with. It was the atmosphere, really, and it matched Tony’s work space back home perfectly - the discarded cups of coffee, various empty food wrappers, scattered pencils covered in tooth marks...you could practically feel Tony’s bizarre creative processes bouncing off the walls, the air filled with ideas of useless and random inventions. In this world which was so foreign to him, Tony could recognise himself in this space. 

He slipped through the lab doors - being Tony’s clone, and all, the finger-print locking system had proven no trouble - and made his way into the workspace, hovering awkwardly at the door way. The soft, mechanical sound of wheels against concrete drew his attention, and he couldn’t hold back is child-like glee as Dummy rolled into the centre of the lab. Back in his own time, Tony had only just finished building the bot and writing his code, and the entire thing was riddled with problems. The dumb lump of machinery was _meant_ to be a helping robot, programmed to learn on the job from the surroundings, but all Dummy ever seemed to accomplish was knocking important stuff off of workbenches and making piss-awful coffee. Seeing as his older counterpart had kept the bot after all this time, he obviously must have smoothed out all the kinks in Dummy’s code, thank god. The bot in question made his - yeah, Tony had always had a problem with assigning pronouns to his creations, but it seemed wrong to simply call Dummy an _it_ \- way over to Tony, a cup of green smoothie clasped firmly in his claw. The bot inched the drink closer to the teenager, who gratefully took it from Dummy. _Huh_ , the kid thought, _Dummy must now be a pretty apt smoothie maker. Nice._ Tony lifted the glass to his lips, practically inhaling a large gulp of the stuff.....

....and promptly spat it out over the floor. 

_Some things never change_ , Tony thought fondly, patting the useless bot with only the mildest feeling of annoyance. 

 

~~~

 

“JARVIS, where’s our resident Marty McFly gotten to?” Tony asked his AI, having left the kitchen and taken some time to calm down (read: drink a considerable amount of whiskey). He’d taken the elevator back to his personal quarters, and was now lounging on his sofa, a glass in one hand and a crystal decanter filled with amber liquid next to his arm. 

“Young Master Stark has made his way to the lab, Sir,” Tony inwardly cringed at _Young Master Stark_ , but nodded his thanks, anyway, knowing the AI would pick up on the action and its sentiment. The genius eased himself off the sofa, only a slight wobble giving away any signs of his brief drinking escapade. He made his way into the elevator, humming along with the light, instrumental version of _Highway To Hell_ trickling from the speakers. The doors opened, revealing the reinforced glass doors to his workshop, and he stepped out of the elevator before slotting his finger into the biometric scanner, the doors opening a fraction of a second later. 

Tony saw his teenage self before the kid saw him; the teenager was sat in the far corner of the lab, legs pulled up to his chest, and Dummy resting his claw over the boys knees. Tony grinned fondly, remembering the trouble the bot had first caused when Tony had created him at just seventeen years of age - not that the robot wasn’t an utter menace nowadays, but he’d been considerably more useless back in the day. 

“Word to the wise,” Tony spoke up, making the teenager jump and raise his head, “if Dummy offers you any food or drink, _do not take it_. It’s not edible, no matter how much he tried to convince you anyway” he said with a wry grin. Tiny Tony’s lip quirked up at the side, glaring fondly at the bot who was now managing to look sheepish, claw hung low. 

“Yeah, tell me about it. I’d have thought you woulda fixed the lump of bolts ages ago” Tiny Tony rolled his eyes, but there was no heat to the statement. He absently ran his hand over the smooth metal surface of Dummy’s frame, placating the bashful bot. 

“Oh, believe me, I tried. I’m planning of shipping the dumb thing off to a community college” The two Tony’s shared a brief, identical laugh, before the younger Stark awkwardly trailed off, picking at a stray bit of thread on his jeans. Tony bit the inside of his cheek, weighing up his options, before lowering himself to the concrete floor besides the youngster. The kid shuffled his trainer-clad feet awkwardly, refusing to make eye contact. Tony sighed faintly. 

“Look, you know as much as anyone that I - uh, we - don’t do.... _feelings_ , but....just, the Avengers? They don’t, uhm, they don’t know what happened. In ‘78, I mean. Obviously they know Mum and Howard died, but, not that you’ve been zapped from the year in which it happened. So, they’re probably gonna mess up, and say some stupid stuff, yeah? But don’t...look, I’m not gonna ask you if you’re okay, or how you’re doing, because we both know that’s a load of crap, but if you need to shout about it, or hit something, or just watch some classic _Star Trek_....hit me up, yeah?” Tony Stark had always been a rambler, especially when it came to emotions, but he knew that Tiny Tony would hear everything he wasn’t, well, couldn’t say. The kid continued picking at his jeans, his eyes blinking rapidly. Tony remembered all too well how crying had been drummed out of him by Howard, and it stung a bit to see his younger self struggling, knowing all too well the mantra that would be playing in his head right now ( _Stark men don’t_ cry, _Anthony. I will not have my heir acting like a pathetic infant_ ). 

“I, er, heard there were a coupla _Star Trek remakes_?” Tiny Tony mumbled, his voice cracking awkwardly towards the end of his words. His shoulders were slumped, head hung low as he stared at the concrete floor. 

“Oh, kiddo, you have a wealth of pop culture to catch up on,” Tony said, lifting himself off of the floor, “c’mon, you are gonna _freak_ at the size of our TV”. 

The two Stark’s, both with the same hunched posture and wild curls, made their way out of the lab and up to the communal living room, walking side-by-side. 

 

~~~

 

The Avengers stood awkwardly in the door way, squished uncomfortably close, as they took in the scene before them. 

The two Tony’s were curled up on the living room sofa, a blanket thrown haphazardly across their legs and various bowls of snacks balanced precariously on their laps. The plan _had_ been to introduce Tiny Tony to the new _Star Trek_ films - Tony had secretly been looking forward to the youngsters reaction to all the insane CGI - until he realised with horror that only the _first Star Wars_ film had been released in ‘78, and that the poor kid wouldn’t have seen the rest of the iconic franchise. The two now had their heads comically close together, leaning forward as they intently watched the film playing on the screen in front of them. Once again, it was jarring to observe the two like this; they both had the exact same expression of child-like glee, eyes lit up like Christmas and mouth slightly agape, and their reactions completely mirrored each other with every laugh, flinch and gasp. It was kind of endearing, really. 

“You said that there were...what, prequels?” Tiny Tony asked, an eyebrow raised, as _Return of The Jedi_ finished. The older man winced, pausing to eat a mouthful of popcorn. 

“There _are_ , but I like to pretend I live in a world where they don’t exist. When we watch them, my young jedi, see you shall” The teenager groaned at Tony’s awful impression of Yoda, but the two burst into laughter nonetheless. 

The other Avengers, still stood in the doorway, glanced at each other, all with eyebrows raised. Whilst Tony was always carefree and smirking, it was usually with a tonne of sarcasm and self-deprecating humour, not to mention a good amount of booze, and yet here he was, _sober_ , with his head thrown back as he laughed with pure joy. The kid, who, since arriving here, had been nothing more than a sullen lump of angst and more angst, was doing the same. 

It was...unnerving. 

Tony took that moment to glance around, catching site of superheroes who were watching the two of them with some sort of strange fascination. He gave them a look to say, _Really?_ , before turning back round to nudge Tiny Tony’s shoulder. 

“Look out, Donnie Darko, we’ve been made,” the engineer said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder towards the crowded doorway. The kid looked over, and then narrowed his eyes. 

“Y’know, you’d think that middle-aged Superheroes would have something better to do than spy on us” Tiny Tony quipped, eyes dancing with mischief. The clamour of, ‘Hey!’, ‘Who’re you calling middle aged?’, ‘I could break you, squirt’ and, ‘Finally, someone who doesn’t call me a war-aged pensioner’ made identical smirks slide onto the two Stark’s faces. 

“Don’t flatter yourselves, boys, we were just watching the films. Didn’t want to encroach on this little love nest you’ve got going on” Natasha said, sauntering over and grabbing a handful of Doritos. 

“ _Rude_ ” The two Tony’s gasped at the same time, clutching the bowl tight between them, daring anyone to steal any more of their precious crisps. 

Clint followed suit, going to snag some Skittles, before Tony slapped him on the wrist. “Sorry, Birdbrain, can’t let you rot out your teeth. SHIELD doesn’t pay for dental” He gave a shit-eating grin as he himself popped a couple of the fruit flavoured sweets into his mouth, amused at the glare he got from the archer. 

“Yeah, yeah, okay, _mum_ ” Clint rolled his eyes, not noticing the way Tony’s jaw twitched and the teenager suddenly became incredibly still, tension practically rolling off him. 

“Hmm, if anything, I reckon Tony would be your dad, Barton. He doesn’t wear _quite_ enough perfume to pull the mothering role off” Bruce commented, still hovering in the doorway. Tony shot the fellow scientist a glare, offended. Tony Stark did not wear _perfume_ , thank you very much. 

“Puh-lease,” Steve started, having moved to sit on one of the armchairs, “Howard had the sweetest tooth of them all. Hey, Tiny Tony, I bet your dad still eats that darn liquorice all the time, doesn’t he?”

Steve wasn’t sure what had happened, but Tony - the older man - shot him the biggest _Shit, you just fucked up look_ he’d ever witnessed, and the younger Stark of the two went completely white. As if they’d shared a silent agreement, the duo stood up from their position on the sofa, with the younger one speeding out of the room as quick as one could without breaking into a run. The older one paused for a second, glancing back at Steve over his shoulder. 

“Not cool, Cap, not cool. Maybe you should pick up a file once in a while,” and with that, Tony followed his younger companion out of the room to god knows where. 

Once again, the Avengers glanced at each other, this time in a state of confusion. Something was definitely going on with Tony - well, both of them, clearly - but nobody seemed to have any clue what it was. 

Mulling over Tony’s words, Steve reached over to the coffee table, yanking a StarkPad off of it. The others guessed what he was doing, and crowded round the arm chair, leaning over the Captain’s shoulders. Steve brought up the folder of Avengers personnel files, and opened up Tony Stark’s. 

The group of superheroes cast their eyes over the information, wondering what they were looking for that could explain Tony’s bizarre behaviour, when -

“Oh, _shit_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’M SO SORRY THAT THIS CHAPTER IS SO LONG I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY. I’m guessing none of you were expecting an update at nearly 3,000 words; what did you think of it? I have to say, I don’t think future chapters will be this long. Next up: The team FINALLY find out wtf is going on with their favourite genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, and we finally, finally, FINALLY get to the Steve feels! As a side note, Civil War is released this Friday in the UK, and whilst I AM seeing it this weekend, I wanted to assure people that this fic will remain a spoiler free space. Although you may need to expect an authors note from me where I’m just screaming into the void over how great it was.


	4. Wowzers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so a couple of things before we kick chapter 4 off;
> 
> 1\. Argh sorry about how long this took! I did have it all written up and was planning to post it Saturday afternoon but then Civil War happened and I had to re-write the whole thing because I was emotionally compromised and needed some positive Steve and Tony feels  
> 2\. On the note of Civil War: ASGTJREHIAHYJRTKDGHJUYTIOJG if you think you are prepared for it, you are WRONG. *sobs*  
> 3\. I’d like to remind you all that this fic will remain 100% spoiler free for Civil War and will not follow that story line at all so don’t you worry  
> 4\. SO I MADE A RATHER HORRIFIC MISTAKE in that when I wrote the first part, being a sleep deprived student, I made a typo and instead of Tiny Tony being from 1987, he came from 1978. So, uh, everything is happening a decade earlier than it should and Tony is now ten years older. Uhm. Ooops? But we can all pretend that it still makes perfect chronological sense, right? Right? Anyway this story doesn’t really follow the set time line anyway SO let’s just pretend I am NOT a sleep deprived student who manages to cock up an entire time line with a single typo  
> 5\. okay last one I promise; I apologise in advance for the fact that I’ll probably often use British terms for things. I think in the last chapter I wrote trainers and mum instead of sneakers and mom or whatever, but I cannot bring my poor English (well, sort of) heart to use American terms. ALSO if I ever write ‘pants’ I am referring to underpants and not trousers. You have been warned. 
> 
>  
> 
> ALSO thanks to everyone who has given kudos/commented so far, I appreciate it so much :)

**Biological parents: Howard Anthony Walter Stark, Maria Collins Carbonell Stark**  
Status: Deceased  
Cause Of Death HYDRA assassination disguised as motor vehicle accident  
Date Of Death: 17.12.78 

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit_. Steve glared at the tablet, looking at it as though it had personally offended him. The file was filled with a considerable amount of information, but none of it mattered to Steve, apart from one date. 

The date of Howard and Maria Stark’s death.

The date that Tiny Tony was from. 

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit._

“Well, now I feel like a dick” Clint sighed, running his hand through his hair with a pained expression. The archer, obviously, wouldn’t been as quick to criticise the teenager had he known what Tiny Tony was going through. 

Steve scrubbed a hand over his face, gritting out, “yeah, you and me both, Barton”, before flinging the StarkPad back onto the coffee table. The fellow Avengers wore similar expressions of wide, guilty eyes and tight lips. 

“Aye, it would seem we were most inconsiderate of the young Stark’s plight,” Thor rumbled, gaining nods of agreement from the other superheroes. The group was silent for a considerable while, mulling over everything that had happened since Tiny Tony arrive, and god, did everything make sense now; the way the young boy had been so furious when Steve had mentioned sending him back to his own time (and hell, did Steve feel as though he’d been punched in the gut, guilt coursing through his veins and sitting heavy in his chest), the way that Tony had been so defensive, the way that both Stark’s seemed to freeze up at the mention of Howard. 

Steve was the first to shatter the pensive silence, unsteadily rising from his position in the chair, scratching the back of his neck. “I’ve got to - someone has to....” The super soldier said, at a loss for words. He shook his head, and stumbled out of the room, brain reeling from this new information. 

Peggy had died two years ago. Steve had - well, truthfully, Steve had been a wreck. Every day he felt another bit of his past being ripped out of his hands; each time he saw an old building being torn down, and a newer, shinier, _better_ one put in its place, all he could think was how that was meant to happen to him. Every time he saw a familiar name in the news paper obituaries, or found out a young celebrity from his time had passed, he saw himself and all those who had died in his place staring up at him instead. 

And Peggy?

Well, Peggy has been the last straw, as it were. She was the last remaining constant, the last element of his past life - what else did he have? All his family, his friends were dead and buried. His home town was foreign and alien. Nothing from his time was even still in production, and anything that vaguely hinted and at the 40s was considered _vintage_ , which, really, was just another way of saying outdated, no longer needed and no longer wanted. Like him. Steve Rogers, Captain America, he was all of those things. Sure, people said that it was amazing he was back, a miracle, and that they were so glad he was there to protect them all. But they knew as well as him that he was a man out of time, cruelly ripped from his own reality and unceremoniously shoved into one that did not have space for him. 

That was, of course, until Tony. Sure, at first, Tony had seen him as everyone else did; a hero, a celebrity, if not a relic. An unobtainable example of perfection and moral goodness, perched upon a pedestal of liberty and patriotism. That was, of course, until Tony had yanked him down from that pedestal and put him on equal ground, as a human, just as flawed and broken as the rest of them.

Funny, how words that were intended to hurt could cause Steve such comfort.

Slowly, Tony and Steve had built up a friendship. They’d gathered up the tattered remains of their first encounter, and the shared comradeship they’d found during the battle, and with those parts they’d pieced together a connection. They spent increasing amounts of time with each other - even before the Avengers said _screw it_ and all moved into Stark Tower - and Tony had become his saving grace is this new and unforgiving modern time; he helped Steve understand the world as it now was, gave him the time and resources to catch up on anything and everything he had missed, but also understood when Steve needed to cling onto parts of his past, in order to make him feel not so alone, lost, abandoned. 

When Steve awoke from his icy coffin, there hadn’t been a place for him in the world. Tony helped to carve one out for him. 

And that’s why now, when Tony - both of them, he guessed - were aching from their shared grief, he wasn’t going to let them shutter their pain away behind closed doors and fake smiles.

 

~~~

“So, that perhaps could have gone better. Although, not not the worst movie night I’ve ever had. Maybe top ten, I guess, but it sure doesn’t beat that time Cli-” Tony rambled on, flopping onto the bed, before being cut off by the sullen teen. 

“Shut up, dude” 

“Dude? _Dude_? Oh god, did I really sound like some awful Cali surfer? Jesus.” The two Stark’s had made their way to the quest quarters, were Tiny Tony had been given a room to stay in. It wasn’t nearly as fancy as the personal quarters, but the younger Stark seemed pretty enamoured with the various holographic interfaces and plasma TV. 

“Wowzers, this tower is yaggalistic, I am Audi 5000, although the tech is Mucho Wackoid, my Mellow” Tiny Tony managed to say with a straight face, before cracking a sly grin at the older man’s horrified face. 

“Fuck, I hate seventies slang.” Tony said, crossing his legs at the ankle and flicking up a holographic display, fiddling around with some designs of a new suit gauntlet he was considering. 

Tiny Tony snorted, and then lent down to rest on his elbows, reclining on the floor as he glanced up at Tony’s work. “So, you really fly around in a tin can?” He asked, intrigued. Seeing as he himself had only just made Dummy, and apparently future Tony still hadn’t been able to sort out the bots god awful code, he couldn’t picture himself not only building such a sleek example of robotics, but then zipping around and shooting bad guys in it. 

“That I do, kiddo. It’s not as claustrophobic as it looks, trust me.” Both of them snorted, before falling into a comfortable silence, Tony working on the gauntlet and the kid observing with interest. Tony - the older one - wasn’t sure about how to bring up the whole _so kid, sorry that you’ve literally only just buried Mum and Howard, and that my team were totally oblivious and probably made you feel, like, ten times worse. Wanna talk about it?_ because Tony Stark didn’t do feelings. From a young age, he’d learnt that the easiest way to deal with things was to repress - Howard had beat the inclination to cry out of him long ago, and it had set a president for the rest of his life; it was safer if he simply buried his feelings, locked them away, and pushed on a charismatic smile for everyone instead. Objectively, he knew that was probably kinda fucked up, because he’d much rather snark his way out of a conversation than face his emotions like a normal functioning adult, but hey, since when had Tony Stark ever been called normal or functioning? 

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t either of the Stark’s who broke the silence, but rather the hesitant knock on the door. Tony flicked the gauntlet designs away, nudging Tiny Tony with his foot so he could walk over to open the room door. 

“That better not be Captain fucking America” His younger counterpart muttered under his breath, crossing his legs and fiddling with his shoe laces. 

“Tony, it’s me” Captain fucking America called from the corridor. The teenager made a noise of contempt, clambering off the floor and throwing himself face first onto the bed, muttering several obscenities. _Great_ , Tony thought, _just fucking great_. 

“Yeah, uh, now might not be the best time, Cap,” The engineer started, unsure how to explain _your very presence is just reminding us of Howard and all the times we were told we’d never amount to anything because we constantly lived in your shadow and you’re kind of killing us here so can you maybe piss off?_ without hurting Steve’s feelings.

“Look, I-I know that we, uh, I kind of fucked up,” Steve started, causing the young Tony to lift his head off the bed with a raised eyebrow, because was that _Captain America_ swearing?, “and, I’m so sorry, Tony, I am, and I just...look, we didn’t know, and we _should_ have, but it doesn’t change the fact that we didn’t, and all of us feel like shit, and we.... _fuck_ , look, I know you don’t do feelings or whatever it is you say, but we’re here for you, both of you, so, just, pizza night is still on, if you guys want to join us. Right, I’m just, gonna...go...” After Steve finished what was perhaps _the_ most awkward speech he had ever delivered, the two Tony’s could hear his footsteps as he walked away. 

Both of the rooms occupants looked over at each other, eyebrows raised and mouths pulled down in confusion. 

“So. Captain America has a potty mouth?” The younger one said, causing Tony to bark out a laugh, tension draining out the both of them. The genius grabbed the younger boys legs, ignoring the kid’s indignant squeak, and spun them off the bed so he could sit down. 

“God, you don’t know the half of it. We have a team swear jar, and he contributes to it more than I bloody do” Tony smirked, picturing Coulson’s horrified face the first time he’d heard the good Captain yell out, “ _mother fucking_ bitch” as a SHIELD medic fished a bullet out from his shoulder. 

“Well, Howard never mentioned _that_ in ant of his patented Captain America speeches,” Tiny Tony quipped, absent-mindedly fiddling with the corner of his T-Shirt. The older man winced slightly, remembering those speeches all too well. 

“Yeah, well, Howard was a dick. And, look, Steve isn’t that bad. In this day and age, he’s my friend. He swears and fucks up and has bad days and watches crappy television just like the rest of us. It took me a while to seperate Howard’s image of Captain America from Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, but it was worth it, yeah? So, let’s just bless everyone with our presence at pizza night and forget about it all” Tony knew that it would rake me than his word to get his teenage self to stop associating Steve with their shitty childhood, but hey, he may as well make a start. Tiny Tony shrugged non-committally, but the engineer knew the promise of pizza would be too good to refuse. 

~~~ 

As it turns out, pizza night wasn’t the total disaster that the Avengers - Tony included - thought it would be.

Sure, it had been somewhat awkward at first, what with the days revelations, but soon the combination of cheesy pizza-ry goodness and beer let everyone loosen up, exchanging sarcasm and harmless jokes as usual. 

“Hey, gramps,” Tiny Tony started, causing Tony to scowl at the kid from over his mug of coffee, “whatever happened to Ty?”

Tony promptly began choking on his drink, setting the mug down as he struggled to regain composure. 

“Ty? Whose that?” Natasha glanced at Tony, eyes glinting, almost as though she could _sense_ his growing embarrassment. Tony wouldn’t even be surprised if she could, at this point. 

“Hm? Oh, nobody, nobody, don’t know what the kids on about, you can’t trust him, you know, cloning and time travel probably messed his memory u-” Tony began to deflect, the constant stream of babble causing his team mates to raise their eyebrows and send knowing looks at him. 

“Oh, there is definitely a story there,” Bruce said, waving his slice of pizza around to point at Tony accusingly. 

Tony shot a warning glance at his younger self, as if to say, _don’t you fucking dare you little shit_. The teenager just shot him a cocky smirk, before shrugging and saying, “My boyfriend”.

Tony let his head fall to the table with a thunk, mentally cursing Loki. The table erupted into crows of laughter at Tony’s reaction, and Clint, who had been taking a gulp of beer at the time, snorted, liquid spraying from his mouth. 

“You mean to tell me that our resident playboy over here had a _boyfriend_? Oh, this is too good. Please, Peggy Sue, tell us more” Barton said, a shit-eating grin plastered over his face. 

“Nope, nope, you are saying nothing, Short-Round. Nothing happened to Ty, nothing.” Tony groaned, lifting his head off the table. At that moment, he was especially glad he didn’t blush easily, because if he did he’d undoubtedly be imitating a tomato right now. 

Tiny Tony glanced at him, before rolling his eyes. “He totally dumped us, didn’t he? What did we do this time?” The Avengers once again started snickering, revelling at the opportunity to hear embarrassing stories from Tony’s childhood. 

“Come on, Tony, do enlighten us” Clint chuckled, laughing even harder when Tony shot him a glare. 

“It can’t be as bad as that giant custom rabbit you got Pepper,” Steve mentioned, causing a round of laughter from the table. Tony sent his eyes skyward, asking what he ever did to deserve this. 

“Ugh, if you heathens must know, it’s because, uh, I forgot Valentines Day. Again.” Tony relented, knowing that his team wouldn’t give up until they knew why _Tony Stark_ got dumped. This time, the team retaliated with rolled eyes and exasperated groans, not surprised in the slightest. Tiny Tony sends his older counterpart a grin, seemingly satisfied in causing Tony an immense load of embarrassment. 

Just then, Thor’s mobile phone began to go off, vibrating against the glass tabletop. The demigod picked up the device, opening the text message and nodding grimly. 

“Word has been sent from Asgard,” Thor boomed, still not quite used to the concept if indoor voices. Tony had managed to sort out the problem of not being able to contact Thor whilst he was back in his home realm, although the other Avengers hadn’t a clue how he’d managed to hook Asgard up with phone reception. 

“And?” Bruce asked, prompting the thunderer. 

“My brother was captured by the guards and is now in the palace jails” He said, setting the phone down as the Avengers shared a look.

Loki had been found, meaning they could start to get to the bottom of this whole magical-clone-time-travel fiasco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What was that? Could that possibly be some actual PLOT forming?
> 
> So I was pretty unsure about this chapter, but I quite like it, and felt the team needed some pizza-induced bonding. I hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> I found the idea of the young Tony using 70s slang too funny not to include, and so for anyone who was wondering, when Tiny Tony was saying, “Wowzers, this tower is yaggalistic, I am Audi 5000, although the tech is Mucho Wackoid, my Mellow”, the rough translation is, “Unbelievable, this tower is boring, I’m outta here, although the tech is fantastic, my friend”. Ah, good old 70s slang. Next up: WILL WE FINALLY SEE SOME PLOT?


	5. I Didn't Even Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAH I’m so sorry for the wait! Unfortunately, my A Level exams start on Monday (please pray for me) and so I’ve been drowning under masses of homework and revision. But I return! Again, thanks to all the people who have read/commented/given kudos! As always, completely un beta’d so get ready for an adventure into the world of typos...
> 
> I wasn’t entirely sure about this chapter (it’s more of a filler bit, I guess, sorry!) but I hope you all enjoy it :) It’s pretty long, so hopefully that makes up for the wait?
> 
> Oh, and in terms of how much more of this story is to come - at the moment, it’s looking like one more final chapter after this, and then a brief epilogue. So, not long to go now!
> 
> ALSO: Warning for mentions of past child abuse. Sorry, guys, but Howard Stark is a dick in this fic.

Thor had jetted off to Asgard not long after he received the text message from Lady Sif. He and the other Avengers had agreed it would be best for the thunderer to confront his brother alone at first, thinking that Loki wouldn’t react kindly to a hoard of unruly Superheroes marching up to his jail cell. 

This left the other heroes - and their new, angst ridden teenage counter part - in a tense, awkward state. Nobody really knew what to do, feeling like they should be trying to fix the whole magic-clone thing, but knowing that for now, at least, they needed to stay behind. 

As one would expect, this meant there was an increase in unnecessary sparring and spontaneous movie marathons (the team was currently part way through a _Lord Of The Rings_ marathon, after Clint had wined incessantly over the fact Steve _still_ hadn’t seen the franchise). 

It also meant that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes had a lot of time to get to know their new house guest, and began learning more about their resident engineer. 

A few years back, Tony had installed a Dance studio into one of the lower tower levels as a birthday gift for Natasha (to this day, he still refuses to believe it was an outlandish and totally extravagant present). Despite her reputation as a cold-hearted bad ass who could kill a man with her pinkie toe (although, those rumours were indeed true, the Avengers had witnessed it), Natasha still loved to do ballet. Of course, she could just pass it off as training - she’d been known to take down a group of ten armed operatives by performing a set of A La Seconde turns - but really, Natasha loved to dance. It was the one aspect of her training in the Red Room that she’d somewhat enjoyed, and later, when she wasn’t learning positions that could be used to snap an adversaries neck, she really began to love the dance style. It may have been funny to some - imagining an international super spy assassin wearing a frilly tutu and pink leotard - but Natasha performed with ruthless perfection, and was both beautiful and fearsome as she leapt and spun her way across the studio floor. 

Of course, she was the only one to step foot in there - the other Avengers had simply laughed and made faces when she offered to share the space with them (Tony telling them he’d woken up hungover and stuffed in a tutu and tiara enough times already, and wasn’t going to repeat the experience on purpose, thank you very much). 

Which was why she was pretty surprised to see someone already in the studio when she entered it for her usual Sunday practice. 

She was even more surprised when she realised it was Tiny Tony. 

There was the lanky teen, who was usually a mess of gangly limbs, dancing in perfect form. He slid into each position flawlessly, making the moves look effortless, even though Natasha recognised the majority of them being advanced. Clearly, the boy had an extensive amount of practice and training under his belt. 

Which meant that _Tony Stark_ had a long history of _ballet lessons_.

The spy stifled a laugh, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth. The boy stopped mid-pirouette, spotting Natasha and greeting her with a coy smile. 

“Sorry, I, uh, didn’t know that you used this place...I hope you don’t mind?” The teenagers pitch lifted at the ends, asking a question as he ran a hand through the mop of sweaty curls on his head. 

Natasha smirked at him, shaking her head slightly. “No, no, it’s fine. None of the cowards up there,” she jerked a thumb towards the ceiling, “are brave enough to join me. They seem to think that they’re testosterone will evaporate the moment they step foot in here.” She rolled her eyes, tossing her gym bag into the corner of the room. Tiny Tony snorted, swiping a bottle of water from the floor and taking a few gulps of the drink. 

“I kinda guessed that ancient me wouldn’t be pirouetting across the tower,” the teen shrugged, straightening the waistband of the pair of athletic shorts he’d thrown over his dance wear. 

“I didn’t even know he - ah, you - _did_ ballet. Somehow I can’t imagine Stark in a leotard.” Natasha said as she started to warm up, stretching her arms from side to side. 

Tiny Tony chuckled, scratching the back of his head. “Oh, we’ve worn plenty, trust me.” The kid faked an over-dramatic shiver, an impish grin on his face. 

“Hmm, what excellent blackmail material. How did you even get started with ballet, if you don’t mind me asking? Somehow, I can’t imagine Howard Stark signing you up for lessons” The assassin asked, making her way over to the barre. She mentally winced at having mentioned the newly-departed man, but the boy didn’t seem to mind. 

“God, no. He’d of had a heart attack, I’m sure. Nah, I did self defence classes - ‘cause of all the times I’ve been kidnapped and stuff - and bribed my driver to pick me up an hour late each time. I just joined in with the ballet classes that happened after self defence.” Tiny Tony grinned, joining her over at the barre. 

Natasha smiled back, wondering how much the kid - heck, how much _Tony_ \- must love the dance style if he was willing to go to all that effort to learn. “So, you pulled a Billy Elliot, then?” She quipped, moving into First Position. 

“I pulled a what? Man, you people have got to stop with these references,” Natasha tried to suppress a laugh, but the fact that Tiny Tony sounded exactly like Steve had his first couple of years in the 21st century amused her no end. 

“It’s a film and a musical. Don’t worry, I’ll put it on at movie night,” 

The two danced for hours, enjoying the simple company of someone who loved to dance as much as they did.

Tony - the older one - groaned when he saw what DVD Natasha had clutched in her hands that move night, casting a knowing glance to his counterpart. The younger Stark just flashed a grin, settling into the sofa and munching on popcorn. 

~~~

There was a grand piano in the communal living room. Nobody knew why, because none of the Avengers could play the instrument. Whilst Clint played a mean tune on the Ukulele, he’d hardly been able to cart a keyboard around with him whilst in the circus, and then later as a SHIELD field agent. Natasha had simply never been given the opportunity (focusing more on language and fighting skills), and whilst Bruce had taken recorder lessons in grade school, it was clear that he certainly wasn’t musically gifted. Thor had simply laughed at the suggestion that _he_ , Prince of Asgard, would have stayed inside learning piano chords instead of hunting with his warrior friends. When the others had asked Tony why he’d put a piano of all things in the living room, he’d simply said it was his obligation as an obscenely rich person to own an ostentatious grand piano, even if nobody would ever lay a finger on the keys. 

At least, Bruce _thought_ nobody would ever lay a finger on the keys. That was until, on his way to the kitchen, he heard the delicate notes of Debussy’s _Nocturne_ filtering from the common room. The scientist’s eyebrows furrowed; he _knew_ none of the Avengers would be the cause of that sound, and unless Pepper had popped in to visit and decided to spontaneously do a perfect rendition on the unused piano, there must be some crazy piano-playing super villain in the tower.

Which, at this rate, seemed just as plausible as anything else in Bruce’s life. 

Bruce crept silently into the kitchen, hoping to be able to catch a glance at the imposter before he sounded the alarm (although, he supposed JARVIS must have already, unless the AI had somehow been disabled). The kitchen led seamlessly into the living room - Tony was a huge fan of open plan décor - and so Bruce was given a perfect view of the piano, which faced the giant windows, overlooking the New York city skyline. 

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting - perhaps yet another crazed villain dressed in uncomfortably tight scuba gear? - but it certainly wasn’t the familiar tangle of dark curls and awkward teenage proportions of Tiny Tony.

Tony Stark was a filthy liar, it seemed. 

Bruce hovered at the threshold, unsure if he should make his presence known or simply leave the teenager to his music. 

“Y’know, I can tell you’re there, Bruce,” The kid said, not faltering once as he played the piece perfectly, “are you going to come on, or stand there like an idiot?” 

The scientist quirked an eyebrow, but walked into the room nonetheless. The kid really was good at playing the piano, although it shouldn’t have surprised him; Tony seemed to be able to master anything once he put his mind to it, and he already did delicate work with his hands whilst engineering. Still, it was strange to think that Tony Stark - whom the Avengers had thought was as musically talented as a Bilgesnipe - could play just as fluently and beautifully as the teenage boy sat before Bruce. 

Tiny Tony played the final notes of the piece, fingers stilling over the keys. He goofily spun around on the seat, turning to face Bruce as the older man poured himself a drink.

“I didn’t know even that you two could play,” The scientist mentioned conversationally, turning to put the juice carton back in the fridge. He regarded the teenager as he shrugged over the top of his glass. 

“My m-mum,” Tiny Tony’s voice broke on the word, but tried to cover it up with a short cough, “uh, she was really big on classical music. We used to listen to it a lot, and she let me take up piano when I asked. D’you play, to?” The kid asked, nodding his head in the direction of the instrument.

Bruce laughed. “God, no. I haven’t got an ounce of musical talent,” He said, sliding his glasses off to clean them. 

“Oh, you just seem like the,” Tiny Tony gestured his hand vaguely, something Bruce saw Tony do on a daily basis, “type to. So, you’re saying I don’t play in the future? Then why the fuck is there a piano in the living room? I mean, I can’t imagine the Spy Twins entertaining you all with weekly Jazz Jams”

“Christ, what a thought. No, uh, Tony just said it was his ‘duty’ as a rich person to own a piano.” Bruce shrugged one shoulder half-heartedly, draining the rest of his drink. “So, you’re a fan of classical music, then?” 

“Mhm, it’s my favourite genre. I like some rock and stuff, too - uh, older me gave me a bunch of new AC/DC and Black Sabbath to listen to - but I much prefer classical,” Tiny Tony admitted, before spinning back around on his stool. He raised his hands above the ivory keys once again, and began to play a piece that Bruce didn’t recognise.

Huh, Tony Stark, a classical fan - who’d have thought it?

~~~

Steve was somewhat of a neat freak. The term ‘somewhat’ is used liberally; the other Avengers were forever complaining about Steve’s obsessive need to dust and hoover and organise, despite knowing full well that if he didn’t, they’d be living in a glorified rubbish dump. 

The super solider was meticulous about keeping his belongings organised, and whilst Sam could harp on about _coping mechanisms_ and Steve just _clinging to any control over his life he can find_ , Steve maintains that it’s simply because having ones things kept neat and precise just makes sense. Why spend hours searching for something when you could simply keep it in it’s own (labelled, colour coordinated, indexed and alphabetised) draw? 

It was because of said organisation and tidiness that Steve noticed straight away when his tin box of colouring pencils was taken. He knew he simply couldn’t have misplaced it, because Steve would never be careless enough to leave his beloved pencils anywhere else than their designated place on his desk. 

And he was willing to bet who had taken them.

Tony Stark was a man on a mission when it came to disrupting Steve’s life. He meant nothing by it, of course, and Steve didn’t particularly mind; he gave as good as he got, and the two were often messing about with each others belongings (just last week, Steve had replaced all of Tony’s digital music collection with Madonna songs, keeping the original titles in place. Tony’s face when he’d expected to hear _Back in Black_ , but was instead greeted by _Vogue_ was hilarious).

Steve made his way towards the workshop, typing his code into the door panel before stepping over the threshold. 

Normally, when Tony took Steve’s stuff, he’d greet him in the workshop with a manic smile and the stolen item with an Iron Man flag stuck to it. 

Instead, Steve walked into the lab to see Tiny Tony sprawled across the concrete floor, Dummy standing guard at his side, and half a dozen coloured pencils surrounding him. In front of him lay a thick sketchbook, and the teenager was in the process of covering the pale white paper with some sort of drawing.

“Uh, Tony?” Steve said, clearing his throat. The lanky kid jumped slightly, obviously too absorbed in his work to have noticed Steve enter the room. He glared at the solider, although there wasn’t much heat behind it. 

“Sorry, Cap, you’re outta luck; other me is off doing lame business stuff with Pepper,” the _so you can piss off now_ was left unsaid, but Steve heard it anyway. It was tense and awkward; Steve wasn’t sure what, exactly, he’d done that the kid took to heart so much. Whilst he did tend to sulk around the tower - which was understandable - he seemed to get on fine with the other Avengers. Joked around with them, even. And yet, Tiny Tony seemed to have some sort of hatred for Steve...he didn’t understand. 

Steve shook his head slightly, unseen by the boy, before saying, “Ah. Right. Um, thanks. Hey, that’s really good,” He nodded at the boy’s drawing, which he could now see was a beautiful sketch of the _The Lord of The Rings_ characters (the group had finally finished the movie marathon the previous night, and both Steve and Tiny Tony had found the films to be cinematic masterpieces). Steve didn’t recall ever seeing Tony - the older one, that is - drawing, never mind something as detailed and striking as the work before him. 

The teen shrugged. “Yeah, well, don’t get to draw like _this_ much at MIT, what with the whole _prodigal child genius_ thing going on.” He chewed absent-mindedly on the end of his pencil, causing Steve to internally flinch. 

“Oh. I didn’t even know that To-I mean, uh, the both of you drew...” The super soldier admitted, looking back at the drawing. 

Tiny Tony snorted. “You’re kidding, right? Have you not seen his schematics and designs? They told me you were smart” The kid raised an eyebrow, eyes flicking around the room, where numerous sheets of hand-drawn blue prints were stuck by tape to the walls.

Steve considered them, and then mentally kicked himself; sure, Tony was never one to sit down and draw sketches of characters or landscapes, but he drew each schematic by hand before digitally uploading them, and nobody could deny that they were beautiful, intricate designs, painstakingly perfect. Steve had only ever regarded them as maths, physics, engineering; something technical and intelligent, made for work instead of out of love for art. And yes, whilst the schematics _were_ inherently technical, it didn’t make them any less beautiful, or require any less skill.

Tony Stark was an artist, and Steve had never noticed. 

“Huh. I guess you’re right. Still, that’s seriously really good,” Steve said, gestured in the general vicinity of the sketchbook. For a second, he thought he saw the kids eyes soften, and a glimmer of a smile surface to his lips, before it was replaced by the usual bitch face Tiny Tony seemed to perpetually wear when in Steve’s presence. The teenager nodded, and went back to colouring in his work.

Steve left the workshop, not mentioning his coloured pencils. 

~~~

It was Clint, perhaps, who learnt the most about Tiny Tony, and by extension, Tony Stark.

Clint was absolutely hammered. Pissed. Rat-arsed. Shit-faced. He was slumped on the floor of his small living room, back pressed against the frayed IKEA Sofa, a bottle of alcohol clasped in his hand. The TV was playing faintly in the background, but Clint hadn’t a clue what show it was, or when he’d even turned it on in the first place. The archer was looking forward to a night of alcohol-induced numbness, hoping to slip into oblivion so that the nightmares of New York didn’t scratch away at his sanity.

Of course, that was the moment that Tiny Tony decided to stumble into the room, making a beeline for the bar (Stark had been awesome enough to install one in Clint’s quarters without the archer even needing to ask).

“The fuck?” Clint slurred, or at least tried to. The resulting noise was more along the lines of, ‘huh uck?’, but the teenager seemed to get the gist of it. 

“For some obscene reason, future me has locked me out from his stash, and none of the other spandex wearers in this tower has any of the good stuff,” Tiny Tony explained, fishing behind the counter and placing a few bottles of spirits on the surface, followed by a decanter filled with scotch. The kids hands hovered over the decanter, but in the end he snagged a bottle of Vodka and joined Clint on the floor. 

Clint watched as Tiny Tony uncapped the vodka in a quick, precise movement, before bringing the bottle up to his lips and taking a long swig. The archer was suddenly feeling a hell of a lot sober, concern cutting through the haze in his brain. 

“Hey, kid, you shouldn- you shouldn’t be drinking that,” Clint said, his words slurring but at least legible. The teen wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, laughing bitterly. 

The archer sighed, getting the feeling that Tiny Tony was used to getting off his face from alcohol, regardless of his young age. “I get it, kid, I do. But you’re seventeen, man, you shouldn’t be getting drunk. I know it’s cause of what happened to your Da-”

“He’s _not_ my Dad” Clint recoiled slightly at the sheer amount of hate that was injected into the kids words. 

“I know Howard didn’t pay you much attention, but _jeeze_ ,” Clint gritted out. Yeah, he felt really bad for the kid; come on, the teenagers parents had just died (at least, in his era, anyway), but just because he clearly had some daddy issues - and heck, who on the team _didn’t_? - didn’t excuse his behaviour. Add that to the fact that Clint was drunk, and he wasn't going to be censoring his anger.

“Howard Stark was an abusive, manipulative, sorry excuse for a man and I’m glad. I’m fucking glad he’s gone.” Tiny Tony spat out, taking another large gulp of vodka, wincing as he did. 

And that’s when the penny dropped.

Sure, Clint had known Tony had some deep-rooted issues with Howard. Truthfully, he’d honestly just thought it was a poor-little-rich-boy story; Tony being handed off to Nanny’s and Boarding School and not receiving enough hugs, or missing out on having his mum and dad at Parents Evening. 

But Clint, who’d had to deal with his own Dad (and brother) throwing him around as a child, recognised the attitude of a kid who’d been smacked around my his own parents. 

_Aw, now I feel like a dick_ , the archer thought. 

“Well, in that case, drink up,” Clint shrugged, draining the last of his own beer. 

~~~

When Tony returned back to his penthouse after a gruelling business trip (he loved Pepper, he really did, but man was she a mean CEO), he hadn’t been expecting to see none other than Steve Rogers sprawled over his bed. 

“Well, at _least_ buy me dinner first, Rogers,” He said, setting his bag down on the floor and loosening his tie. Steve sat up quickly, rolling his eyes at the engineer. 

“In your drams, Stark. I have standards, y’know,” Steve joked, flashing a grin. Tony barked out a laugh, shaking his head as he toed off his shoes. 

He sat on the bed himself, next to where Steve had flopped back down. “Not that I’m opposed to having a super solider in my bed, but is there any particular reason you’re here?” 

Steve cleared his throat. “Have a good trip?” He tried to sound nonchalant, but it was evidently a diversion.

“Steve.” 

The soldier exhaled slowly, his eyes looking directly up at the ceiling. “Why do you hate me?” He said in a rush, hands clenching at his side. 

Tony blinked. 

_Wait, what?_ He thought, staring over at Steve, who continued to stare upwards. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to answer that,” he started, Steve going rigid next to him, “seeing as, y’know, I _don’t_ hate you,” Tony finished, wondering what the hell his friend was on about. Steve gritted his jaw, looking up towards Tony with his patented _bullshit_ face. 

“Seriously, Cap, not quite sure where you’re getting your information from,” Tony said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture as he did. Steve sighed, slowly moving to sit up. 

“Okay, maybe _you_ don’t hate me, but your teenage counterpart certainly does. And you and he are the same person. So, you either still do, or used to, hate me as much as he does.” 

“It’s not-”

Steve cut Tony off. “Unless it’s something I’ve done recently. But I didn’t say any more about your parents than any of the others, and he’s getting along fine with them. Please, Tony, what have I done? Why does a kid who barley knows me hate my guts?” Tony swallowed, looking down at his knees. He absently picked at his trousers, pulling at a loose thread. The joking, friendly tone that had been there when Tony entered the room was gone, replaced by something heavy and emotional, and Tony wasn’t sure how to deal with that.

“Cap, he - I mean I, ah, fuck it - he just lost his parents. Cut the kid some slack.” Tony desperately wanted this conversation to be over, for him to be anywhere but _there_. He was not prepared to talk about this, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to voluntary have a heart to heart with Captain fucking America. 

“That’s bullshit, Tony and you know it. I _know_ that you’re not telling me something. Please. I need to know what I’ve done, I - you don’t see the way he looks at me, and I don’t know what to do....” Steve trailed off, at a loss for what to say.

Tony had an internal mantra of _fuck, fuck, fuck_ racing through his mind, because Steve was looking at him with that _face_ , the one with the puppy-dog eyes and down turned mouth, and that just wasn’t _fair_ because he was going to have to talk to him now, tell Steve abo-

Tony breathed heavily, trying to squash down his internal panic. “Look, it’s just, and when I say this, I mean it...it’s not you, it’s me. Him. Us, whatever. Call it long-standing Daddy Issues, if you want, but that’s what it is. Howard was a dick, okay? A massive fucking arsehole and-”

“Your Dad was a good man, Tony,” Steve said, in his 100% Captain America™ voice. He mulishly set his jaw, resounding loyalty to his War BFF rolling off him. Tony was trying to keep his cool, was trying not to think back to all those times Howard proved he sure as hell wasn’t a good man, but he felt the anger rising, sitting hot and heavy in his chest, a ball of rage. 

“He fucking wasn’t, Steve. I don’t care what inventions he built or how far he flew over enemy lines or what jokes you and he traded back in the 40s. He was nothing more than a horrible, screwed up old man and I-”

“Howard Stark was a hero, Tony, and you know it.” 

And that was the precise moment that Tony lost it. He laughed bitterly, if not a little hysterically. 

“Oh, oh do I, now? If he was such a hero, such a good man, then why did I spend my childhood covering up bruises? Huh? If he was such a hero, how come I have this,” Tony gestured to the side of his head, pointing out a scar that ran from under his ear to his jaw, “from when he threw a fucking bottle at me? Or when he threw me down the stairs and broke my arm? Or when he cracked my ribs? I was 12 when he did that, and had to fucking lie to the doctors and said I fell out of a tree house. They didn’t believe me, they knew how I’d gotten hurt, but they didn’t _say_ anything, did they? Nobody wants to criticise the great Howard Stark” He was fuming, unable to stop himself as his bottled up rage and hurt spilled out, overflowing like a waterfall. Steve went to say something, his face pale and eyes shining, but Tony wasn’t done yet. 

“And if Howard Stark was such a great person, then how come the only person he ever spoke of with some form of compassion and love, the only person he seemed to cared about, was you? You were the impossible standard, you dick, and it wasn’t your fault but that’s what you fucking were, and anything less then you was like, was like _trash_ in Howard’s eyes, so don’t you start getting _butt hurt_ when seventeen year old Tony Stark holds a grudge against you. Yeah, I got over it, I stopped being angry at you and angry at my Dad instead, but _he_ hasn’t. So don’t go around saying Howard Stark was a hero because he fucking wasn’t.” Tony said in a rush, face flushed from anger and from talking too fast, mouth dry. Steve was looking at him as though he’d been slapped, a horrified, pained expression painted over his features. 

He looked like he was going to cry.

Tony _felt_ like he was going to cry.

Steve took a couple of deep breaths, running a hand over his face. “I, oh god, Tony, I...I’m so sorry. I didn’t even...I didn’t even _know_ , fuck, I - I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” His voice cracked, lips trembling just a fraction as he reached for Tony, ignoring the engineers protests as he brought him into a hug. 

“I’m sorry,” He said again, fingers digging into Tony’s shoulders, but he didn’t mind. 

“Yeah, me too”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, I think that’s my longest chapter to date! Sorry it was pretty heavy and so dialogue-centric towards the end.
> 
> So, I probably won’t be able to update after my exams (which finish near the end of May). I might try and write some more in between them, but I’m super nervous about my exams so I’ll probably be revising most of the time (English isn’t my first language, and whilst I (hopefully) write fluent enough in it, exams always make me jittery!) - sorry that there’ll be a gap! I hope this long chapter makes up for it :)


	6. Tall-Dark-And-Evil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAH I’m so sorry that this is so late! me being the perpetually ill person that i am, i had a major asthma attack during my second A Level exam and have been in hospital for the last three weeks, so i’m actually writing this rn from my hospital bed
> 
> with that in mind, i’d like to apologise for how awful this chapter probably is - i’m drugged to the gills right now with all sorts of medication, i still can’t really, yknow, breathe, and i had to borrow a nurses iPad to quickly write this all. EXPECT TYPOS. This is also why this chapter is so short, because i can assure you, trying to type on a touch-screen when you’ve got several IV’s in your arms, an oxygen mask on your face and a Pulse Oximeter (the little clip things that measures your oxygen levels) on one finger IS NOT EASY. IN THE SLIGHTEST. 
> 
> With all that said, i hope this chapter isn’t too awful, and that you enjoy it! Thanks again to everyone who had commented and given kudos!

Thor was not the most patient of creatures. Whilst, yes, he had certainly mellowed since he was banished to Midgard all those years ago - for which the lovely Lady Jane could be largely attributed to - he still, from time to time, found his patience wearing thin.

This was one of those times. 

Now, don’t get the thunderer wrong - he loved his brother, Loki, he did. Of course, the other Avengers thought he was crazy - none more so than Clint - for still maintaining that his sibling was good at heart, but it was true. He’d just started hanging out with the wrong crowd, so to speak. 

However, Loki was beginning to drive Thor crazy, as he often did when they were young children. 

“Brother, please, explain to me why you would do such a thing,” The demigod asked Loki again, as he had done several times previously. 

The trickster laughed, rolling his eyes as he did so. “My, _my_ , brother, all your time on Midgard certainly hasn’t helped your intelligence, I see. No, you see, I did not go to all this trouble,” he waved his hand - still chained to the floor of his cell - around, little green sparks shooting off his finger tips, “to simply tell you my reasons, only for you to leave me here and go tattle to your little... _friends_.” Loki sneered the last word, his lips pulling into a bitter smirk. 

Thor had to admit, he knew it had been a bargain when asking his brother. He had hoped, perhaps naively, that Loki would tell Thor what type of spell he used, so that Thor could enlist one of the many Vanir he knew to counteract the magic. 

Almost as if he could read Thor’s mind, Loki leant forward, and said, “Besides, brother, this magic cannot be undone without my assistance. If you do not take me with you to Midgard, Tony Stark will be stuck with his young counterpart.”

~~~

Whilst Thor was away on Asgard, those left back at the tower had struck up a tradition of Games Night. As much as they all loved Movie Nights, by nature the group of superheroes were restless, and whilst heated games of Mousetrap and Scrabble weren’t the most exhaustive of activities, it sure beat sitting around for three hours watching _Sharknado_ (Clint’s choice) or _The Notebook_ (also Clint’s choice). 

The evening had started off with a rowdy game of Pictionary, until it became clear that the two Tony’s had an obvious advantage, what with being the same person and all; when Tiny Tony managed to guess ‘eureka’ exactly 0.5 seconds into Tony drawing a bath tub, the group has called it quits. After rifling through the collection of board games, the group had settled onto Jenga for the remainder of the evening, after finding out that neither Steve or Natasha had ever played it. 

“Okay, no, this is cheating,” Clint complained, flopping dramatically onto the floor as Tony once again miraculously slid a block out from the precarious tower. 

“And how do you suppose Stark is cheating at _Jenga_ , Clint?” Natasha asked, taking a sip from her can of beer and poking Clint’s side with cold toes, smirking as he flinched. 

The archer rolled his eyes, as if the answer was obvious. “ _Because_ , Nat, he’s an engineer. He has an unfair advantage when it comes to building things, or dismantling them without completely destroying them,”

Both Tiny Tony and Tony snorted, sharing identical looks of amusement. “You know, I take offence to that, feathers. I put a lot of effort into completely destroying things,” The older one quipped, holding back on his urge to ‘accidentally’ jog the table whilst Bruce took his turn. 

“Besides, Barton, Tony has yet to go a week without blowing _something up in his workshop_ ,” Steve added, ignoring the exasperated sigh produced by Clint. 

Tiny Tony, who was sat at the table between Bruce and Natasha, was carefully eyeing up the wooden tower. His fingers hovered in front of one particular block; it was near the bottom of the structure, which was a risk, but he knew he could safely take it out, making it even harder for Natasha, whose turn was after his. 

Just as the teenager was slowly sliding the wooden brick out, Tony’s phone began to blast AC/DC’s _Thunderstruck_ at an obnoxiously loud volume, causing the boy to jerk in surprise. The Jenga tower crashed down, wooden blocks flying over the table, much to Clint’s delight. Tony winced, and sent an apologetic smile towards his younger counterpart before excusing himself to answer his phone in the hallway. 

“Please, tell me that wasn’t Thor’s ringtone,” Bruce groaned, rolling his eyes; whoever said Tony Stark was suave and charismatic obviously didn’t realise his sense of humour consisted of dry sarcasm and awful puns. 

Tiny Tony barked out a laugh. “Oh, you better beleive it. Each of you has your own special ringtone,” he shrugged casually, starting to collect the stray Jenga blocks. 

“Oh, _god_ , mines the _Birdie Song_ , isn’t it? I know it is. Screw him,” Clint muttered darkly, finally sitting up from the floor. Tiny Tony sniggered, confirmation enough that the archer was right. 

“Do I even _want_ to know what mine is?” Bruce asked, taking a sip of tea from his mug. Tiny Tony had recoiled when some was offered to him, firmly in the belief that the only hot drink that should be consumed was coffee. 

“Awh shit, well, don’t blame me for these, all right? Okay, well, Bruce, yours is, uh, _Boom! Shake The Room_. Steve’s, predictably, is _American Boy_ , and Natasha, yours is - oh, God, please don’t kill me - _Incy Wincy Spider_ ,” Tiny Tony finished, wincing as Natasha’s eyes hardened. Clint, however, found it all too hilarious, and was howling with laughter at the put-out expressions on his team mates faces. 

Just as Natasha was starting to pelt Clint with Jenga blocks, Tony rushed back in, his mouth set in a small frown. 

“So, that was Thor. He’s coming back. With Loki,”

~~~

Clint met the rest of his team back in the communal floor, having dashed off for reasons unknown. When he returned, the archer was kitted out to the nines with various weapons, including, but not limited to, his bow, _two_ quivers filled with arrows, eleven knives of varying lengths, and a pistol. To say it was overkill would have been an understatement. 

“Clint. What are you doing?” Natasha asked, looking him up and down and cataloguing the various weapons concealed over his body. 

“If Loki is going to be in the same _realm_ as me, then I’m sure as heck not going to be unarmed,” He said, flicking one of the knives over in his hand. 

Tony snorted. “You’ve got enough weaponry to arm several SWAT teams, Birdie,” He sniggered, ignoring the glare he gained from the archer. 

Truth be told, nobody was really surprised at Clint’s over the top reaction, nor were they judgemental. The trickster God had completely messed with Clint’s head, had tormented the archer as he was forced to watch himself kill countless agents - agents that he’d worked with, had been on friendly terms with - helpless to stop. Barton still wasn’t halfway recovered from his stint as Loki’s puppet, and so the giant collection of weapons was more than understandable. Loki would be lucky if he left the tower without an arrow between his eyes and with all four limbs still intact.

The whole team, minus Thor and plus Tiny Tony, was situated back in the communal living room, with Natasha lounging in her favourite arm chair, Clint stood next to her with clenched fists, Bruce huddled in a corner doing some last minute breathing exercises, Steve standing in his patented _Captain America Is Having None Of Your Shit_ stance, and the two Tony’s stood nearest to the windows - leading to the landing pad -, acting as some sort of welcome wagon. 

Nobody was happy with the situation. 

Naively, the group had assumed Thor would corral his brother into undoing the magic from his dingy Asgardian prison cell, but no such luck. Whilst on the phone, Thor had told Tony that his brother said he could not perform any magic without being there in person. Tony was calling bullshit on that - sure the trickster just wanted the opportunity to gloat in person - but who was he to argue against two royal Asgardians? 

In fact, Tony wasn’t even sure what he wanted Loki to do.

Objectively, he knew he should want Loki to undoing his weird cloning spell. Heck, if a few months ago you’d asked Tony what he’d do if he was presented with a clone of seventeen year old him, he’d for sure have wanted said clone to, well, disappear. 

But that, of course, was before him and Tiny Tony... _bonded_ over their shared shitty past. And hell, wasn’t that bizarre for Tony, to say he bonded with, what, _himself_? 

Tony was still trying to figure out what he actually wanted when the once clear-blue sky suddenly was washed with grey, a deep rumble of thunder coming from the clouds. The glass of the windows started to shake slightly, minute cracks forming on the surface. Just as Tony was going to make a remark about sending Loki the repair bill, the two royal, alien brothers crashed onto the landing pad, accompanied by a loud burst of thunder and flashes of lighting. The floor under their feet was scorched, thin tendrils of smoke drifting up. 

“Friends!” The thunderer boomed, making his way inside the building, “I have returned from Asgard, and with me is my brother, Loki,” 

Loki rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, always stating the obvious, _brother_.” He sneered, with a horrifically obnoxious air. 

The air was thick, heavy - and not just from Thor’s weather-altering arrival, either; the tension was palpable, what with Loki grinning like the Cheshire Cat, and The Avengers (bar Thor) clearly reading to jump into Fighting Mode at a moments notice. 

“Ah, and what do we have here, then? ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ playing _babysitter_. How quaint,” Loki said, looking over his nails as if the situation held no interest for him. 

Thor looked over at his brother, his giant arms crossed against his chest, Mjölnir hanging from one hand. “Now, brother, I did as you wished and brought you to Midgard. Undo the spell, as you promised” He said, not noticing the put out look plastered on Tiny Tony’s face. 

Yeah, Tiny Tony wasn’t exactly thrilled to be around whilst everyone begged this Loki guy to make him disappear. 

“Am I the only one wondering why the hell _Tall-Dark-and-Evil_ over here did all this?” Bruce asked, his sarcastic nature showings itself at full force. 

“It’s Loki. He obviously just wanted to mess people up,” Clint gritted out, his hands clutching his bow so tightly, his knuckles were white. 

Steve shot Clint a warning look, obviously not wanting a fight unless absolutely necessary, which Loki noticed. “Yes, _Captain_ , please do tell your guard dog to stand down,”

“Cut the crap, Loki,” Tony said, crossing his arms over his chest and gritting his jaw. The engineer was incredibly tense, both because of Loki - the one who made it so Tony had to _fly through a fucking portal into space_ \- standing completely blasé in his living room, and the fact he still didn't know how he wanted this to play out.

The trickster laughed, eyes flashing. Thor looked completely unimpressed at his brother, embarrassment and frustration rolling off of him. “Come now, mortals, you cannot say that you did not benefit from this...experience,” Loki grinned, rocking every-so-slightly back and forth and his feet. 

Of course, Tony had to agree with the god on that one, not that he’d ever admit it, though. Yeah, the entire thing could have gone tits up - Tiny Tony could have remained the sullen, asshole teenager without the rest of the team every finding out. They could have ended up hating both Tony and his past self. But it had, in a bizarre way, perhaps caused the team to get...closer. Sure, they were still as dysfunctional as ever - even more so, what with a grieving teenager thrown into the mix - but there was an extra layer of understanding to them all, now. Yes, they’d been friends, and had worked well together, before Loki decided to meddle, but they had all known it was due to circumstance. You couldn’t work as effectively as the Avengers did if the team members were at loggerheads, like Steve and Tony had been that day on the hellicarrier. But now....it seemed to run deeper than just comradeship and shared experiences, which Tony had to admit, he was grateful for, even though it annoyed him no end that it only came about because of _Loki_. 

“Yeah,” Tony Tiny said, drawing the word out, “gonna have to disagree with you on that one, dude,” he said, shifting slightly on his feet, speaking up against Loki for the first time. Clint and Natasha hummed their assent, the latter staring Loki down, as she had been since the two Asgardians arrived. 

“Surely you cannot beleive that?” Loki said, his amusement evident. When none of the Avengers - or Tiny Tony - took the bait, he continued. “My, _my_ , you certainly aren’t the brightest, are you? Why, can’t you see? If it weren’t for my...interference, none of you would have come to know your Man of Iron quite so well. Why, who’s to say you wouldn’t still be arguing like petulant children?” He cast a glance towards Tony and Steve, eye glinting as he saw the two tense, “No, no, if it weren’t for me, you’d never have progressed from simple civil team mates to close friends.” Loki finished, shrugging slightly, as if to say, _it was no big deal_. 

The team stared at him dumbly. “Are you...are you trying to say you, what, did this out of the _kindness of your heart_?” Clint asked, just as confused as the other Avengers. His grip momentarily loosened on his bow, which he lowered slightly. 

Loki barked out a laugh, his eyes pressed firmly shut and mouth so wide his back molars could be seen. “What? Please, do not flatter yourselves. No, I was simply bored. It was most amusing to watch Earth’s supposed superheroes scramble around,” 

“ _Loki_ ,” Thor chided, sending a bashful look towards his Midgardian friends. Bruce and Tony snorted at the familial scene, before realising that the circumstances were less than domestic. 

“Fine, fine, as you wish, brother. I’ll get to undoing my magic,” Loki said, rolling up his sleeves and positioning his hands. Tiny Tony gulped, visibly distressed at the fact that his entire existence was about to be completely unravelled by some crazy alien in a cloak. 

“ _Wait!_ ” Tony almost yelled, shoving his smaller counter part to the side. 

The Avengers, Tiny Tony and Loki looked at the engineer in confusion, hope and amusement respectively. Loki sent the man an exasperated expression, before motioning his hand in a go on gesture. 

“I...you don’t need to undo the magic,” Tony muttered, shooting a shaky grin down at his teenage counterpart. 

“Sorry?” Loki said, clearly confused - _this_ certainly hadn’t been part of his plan. Tony rolled his eyes. 

“I _said_ , you don’t need to undo the magic. Let him be,” He shrugged slightly, his Tone implying that Loki was an idiot. 

Loki catalogued the engineers face carefully, clearly trying to figure out if he was joking or not. Thor, stood beside his brother, looked as equally complexed. “You...you wish for your clone to stay?” The thunderer asked. 

Tony shrugged again. “Sure. I mean, I can’t really just ask you to, what, cause him to cease to exist, can I? Let him stay,” The other Avengers grinned, clearly glad at the decision, but none more so than Tiny Tony, who felt like he could cry with relief. 

And if a few tears did slip out? Well, nobody needed to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god that was so anti climatic I’m so sorry. Please feel free to point out an typos - whilst spell check has saved my life multiple times whilst writing this, I’m pretty drugged up right now, so who knows if what I’ve written is even English (I actually slipped into writing in Norwegian at one point, oops, the nurses on my ward were treated to some Norwegian swearing on my part when i realised)
> 
> AND SORRY I MADE LOKI SEEM LIKE A DICK he’s actually one of my favourite characters but I’m halfway to dying right now so please excuse the fact I can’t write characters very well. I’m aware that the chapter is real shitty so I’m sorryyyyyyy! 
> 
> There will be a short epilogue in the near future, but I'm not sure when - it'll depend on when I'm out of hospital. For the first few days I was actually in intensive care (complete with being fed by a tube down my throat which is just, yeah, ew) so I hope you can understand that I'm really pretty ill, and might end up waiting a bit. A huge, huge thank you for reading this fic! :)


	7. Go Forth and Conquer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand so we’ve come to the epilogue! This is the end! I had so much fun writing this, but I’m glad to try and give it an ending it deserves. Shout out to my friend who gave me her laptop to use whilst in hospital - that’s why this update is coming this soon, rather than in a couple of weeks when I’m (hopefully) released. I hope you all enjoy this!

A sleek, shiny red Maserati glided smoothly down the road, looking out of place amongst the SUV’s, Sedans and station wagons parked on the curbs. It was Tony’s idea of subtlety, after being told that under no circumstances was he to drive any number of his Bugattis or Ferraris (much to Tony’s chagrin). He pulled up outside the high school entrance, nose crinkling with distaste, and cut the engine. 

He looked over at Tiny Tony - who’d be going by Edward from now on at school, because really, he’d never get away with keeping his real name - who was sat in the passenger seat, earphone in one ear a nondescript backpack balancing on his lap. 

“Are you _sure_ about this?” Tony asked, for what must have been the fifteenth time that day alone. 

Tiny Tony rolled his eyes, turning his head to look at his older self. “C’mon, you know I’ve thought about it a lot,” He said, pulling out the earphones and wrapping them around his mobile, before stuffing the device in his bag. “I mean, I - you.... _we_ never exactly had a normal high school experience. Hell, until a few months ago, I was studying at MIT, for gods sake,”

Tony looked at the teenager, a, _Yeah, and_? expression on his face. The man clearly didn’t understand Tiny Tony’s though process. 

“I dunno,” Tiny Tony continued, raising an eyebrow, “didn’t you ever just wanna do it the normal way?” The kid shrugged, leaning back into his seat.

There was a pause, until Tony took his sun glasses off, folding them into his jacket pocket. “Nope, no, nah, nada. There is not enough money in the world - and I should know, most of it’s mine - that would have gotten me to spend any more time at school then needed.” 

Tiny Tony snorted, shoving Tony’s shoulder. “Well, guess we’re different, after all.” Tony laughed along with him, shaking his head.

“Yeah, but... _public_ school?” The engineer said, looking out of the window and at the plain, if not haggard, building with a look of mild horror. Just looking at the place made him want to break out the antiseptic hand gel. 

Tiny Tony shrugged once again, before giving a smirk and pushing the door open, clambering out of the obnoxiously flashy car. He paused after he shut it, glancing back in. 

“Hey, look,” Tony started, fidgeting somewhat, “if you need anything, you can always call, but, if you keep constant contact, it might be a little...”

“Weird? Yeah, I know. All the more reason to do this, I guess,” Tiny Tony finished, hitching the rucksack onto his hoodie-clad shoulders, “S.H.I.E.L.D has set me up...I’ll be fine,”

They both nodded, somewhat awkwardly, not entirely sure how best to say goodbye to your Asgardian-created clone. 

Tony broke the silence. “And remember, if anyone connects your face to my stunningly good looks, the story is-”

“I’m your nephew, yeah, yeah, I _know_ ,” 

Another awkward pause. 

“You’re _sure_ you want to do this?” Tony asked, still unable to let the _willingly returning to high school thing_ go. 

Tiny Tony glanced around at the other students milling around, before very obviously checking out a guy who’d made eye contact before blushing and turning back to his book. The teenager was cute, in an oversized jumper and large glasses. Tiny Tony looked back, giving a nonchalant half-shrug and a smirk. 

Tony paused, clearly impressed. He gave a knowing nod. “Ah. Yes. Right. Go forth and conquer,” He chuckled at the put out look and eye roll he received from Tiny Tony. 

The teen gave a few taps on the car, signalling that Tony could _piss off, now, thanks_. Tony gave one more look at Tiny Tony, before starting the car and driving away from the school. 

The bell rang, and Tiny To- no, _Edward_ , spun around, making his way towards the entrance. The boy he’d seen from before awkwardly made his way over, sticking his hand out in a way of greeting. 

Yeah, he was going to be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god it’s done! Finished! I really hope this was an okay epilogue - it shamefully follows the ending of Stargate SG1 episode ‘Fragile Balance’, but I couldn’t resist!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who’s read, commented and given kudos, you really made writing this worth while. 
> 
> Tusen takk!

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo that happened? Sorry that this part was so short, I just wanted to introduce the situation first. The next chapter will be up shortly! Any comments/critique would be greatly appreciated, as well as any requests for where this goes....I’m not entirely sure where this fic will take us, so if there’s anything you want to see, I’ll try my best to include it. Thanks for reading! :) (Also I have no idea how to format/stylize stuff so if this looks completely awful then I'm terribly sorry, I am smol and dumb)


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